Lessons
All students will receive a 30-40 minute weekly small group lesson with the instrumental teacher. Lessons are during the school day and students need to check with their classroom teachers about the work missed while out of the class. This is usually not a problem for most children.
Students will purchase music books initially and have weekly assignments to practice at home. 20-30 minutes of daily home practice is necessary for any hope of performance reinforcement and progress. Weekly evaluations of ‘excellent’, ‘satisfactory’ and ‘needs improvement’ are issued by the music teacher on a Home Practice Form. This information is not added to the student’s report card.
Academic areas covered include but are not limited to:
Instrument assembly and maintenance
Sound production, articulation, and fingerings/slide/stick positions
Understanding musical concepts
Creating and notating music
Listening/Analyzing/Evaluating
Performing music from around the world
Awareness of how music relates to all the arts and the school curriculumLearn about composers (Grainger, Holst, Copland, Gershwin, Ellington, and Sousa)
Exposure to a variety of styles including popular, traditional, classical, folk, and patriotic
Play along with professional musicians at home and in class using CD recordings of assigned lesson material.
